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Old 01-04-2008, 10:41 AM   #11
NatCh
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But ... what is an "average consumer"?

Quote:
Originally Posted by shousa View Post
... I want the view of the AVERAGE consumer not seller.
Average consumer? Could you expand on that a bit? Do you mean the average consumer at large, or the average consumer of e-books?

If you're talking about Joe Blow on the street, then I'd agree: e-book devices aren't good enough for his use. But then again, statistics say that Joe Blow on the street isn't getting much use out of paper books either.

If that's the "average consumer" you have in mind, he's not going to be hanging around this forum.


However, if you're talking the average consumer of e-books, then this forum is probably an excellent place to find such a critter.

I would submit to you, however, that the average consumer of e-books is at least somewhat computer savvy or he wouldn't be reading e-books in the first place. Such a person could likely handle something like running a black-box utility to convert from one format to another (just as many average, "Joe Blow on the street" type of folks seem to manage running a ripper utility to make MP3 files from their CDs, for instance). Running a .LIT file through LIT2LRF to get an LRF file shouldn't be beyond this sort of "average consumer's" capabilities. Certainly loading an RTF file bought from Baen's Webscriptions service onto a device with no conversion at all ain't no hill for a stepper, as my grandma says.

I don't really think it's accurate to call such format conversions "hacking" -- certainly some formats are extremely involved to convert to and from, but many of them aren't. Given the right utilities, which are just a Google search away (assuming our "average consumer of e-books" speaks Google), conversion can take less time than a reading device needs to open the file.
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